


A Genius At Work

by Tanaqui



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22375237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/pseuds/Tanaqui
Summary: The most important thing Havelock had learned during his time at the Assassins’ Guild was that you were never done with learning. And now he was learning that  lessons could come from the most surprising of teachers.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 59
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	A Genius At Work

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/gifts).



Havelock forced his way through the press of carts and people, having abandoned the coach when he reached the river. His aunt had told him to save Keel, but he was nearly sure that the most important task that evening would, in fact, be to save a young lance-constable from being caught in Snapcase’s crossfire. 

Finding his way blocked by yet another tangle of carts, he ducked into an alley and, heedless of who might be watching, scrambled up the brickwork like a scalded cat. What he needed was _time_....

oOo

Saving lives was not something the Guild of Assassins taught its students, though it was otherwise very particular about the education it provided. 

It was less particular about how well they studied it.[1]

Most would-be assassins focused on weapons training: knives and crossbows and garottes and other sharp and pointy things. A few were drawn in by the allure of the courses about poisons: fast or slow, sprinkled or poured, tasteless or mimicking common condiments to make them undetectable. For the occasional absent-minded and unfortunate student, a little too undetectable.

Havelock didn’t neglect these classes. But he found himself interested in other things. How grand houses functioned, for example, and what kind of servants you could expect to find in which rooms. The mystery that a man could become entirely invisible while wearing brightly coloured livery. 

He studied what people looked like, too. Not in the way that maniac Swing did. But he took note of how a different haircut or plucked eyebrows or a particular shape of a hat or jacket changed someone’s appearance. And what didn’t change: the way they moved, the profile of their nose and the distance between their eyes, the shape of their ears. In short, what to look for when you were hunting someone who didn’t want to be caught and could afford the best in disguises.

Politics, too. As a member of the Vetinari family, he had naturally imbibed the details of the current machinations of the ruling classes of Ankh-Morpork and every other city state and country on the Disk with his wet nurse’s milk. And it was hardly possible to spend any time in the company of Aunt Bobbi without picking up a thing or two. But while his masters droned on about the bloodlines of noble families and the intricacies of the seventeen known forms of government and the shifting alliances of the Tsortean Wars, he paid attention to how power passed: who really held it and who lost it and why and where it went.

Now he was learning something else entirely.

There was a Mob — no, there _should_ have been a Mob. But all Havelock could see, from the concealing shadows of the rooftops opposite the Treacle Mine Road Watch House, was a would-be Mob being slowly transformed back into a group of slightly rowdy Ankh-Morpork citizens — simply out for an evening stroll and whatever entertainment was to be had — by a man with a cigar in one hand and a mug of something in the other.

By a man who was taking away all the flashpoints and petty excuses and imagined injustices that people used to justify not keeping the peace. 

This was _real_ power.

For the first time, Havelock understood that the city functioned — more or less — not because it had a Patrician who ruled with a firm hand, or a nobility who plotted while cutting each other dead at elaborate receptions, or even a Guild to control almost every commercial interest in the city. No, it functioned because most people just wanted to get on with life, without any fuss, with everyone knowing what the little rules were and making sure everyone stuck to them. Enough food and a safe place to sleep and maybe a warm body to share it with, mostly. Even the, uh, the _Seamstresses_ just wanted the Guild that Snapcase had promised them so there would be little rules for that, too. 

Havelock went on watching as the man who called himself Sergeant John Keel continued to skilfully manage the crowd, all the while aware that someone else was lurking in the rooftop shadows and paying equally close attention to Sergeant Keel.

Then Havelock froze, all else forgotten. Keel had grabbed the shirt of a man in the crowd and was making a point by directing everyone’s attention to the other watchmen, one by one. The first of them was a lanky youth who gangled a bit more than Keel and who had far fewer lines and scars on his face, but who shared the exact same slightly unfortunate ears and the exact same slightly asymmetric set to his nose.

Maybe Keel was the young man’s long-lost father. Maybe that was all it was. Yet it was more than a family resemblance — and Havelock was remembering all the other information that had come from various directions: how Keel had been robbed of some fancy armour on his first day in the city, along with a nice cigar case engraved with the names Sam and Sybil. How he’d gone haring up to the Ramkin house soon after — a house where Havelock had only recently attended a very dull ball and danced with Lord Ramkin’s rather plain but formidable daughter.

Before he had a chance to pursue the thought to its illogical conclusion, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. The other rooftop lurker, apparently done with lurking, had raised a small crossbow and was aiming it downwards. Smoothly, Havelock raised his own already prepared bow and fired, barely acknowledging the clatter of tiles and the thud of a falling body before he turned his attention back to the two men in the street below who were, surely, one and the same. Quite how and why was beyond him, but between the Wizards at the University, or those monks on Clay Lane, or one of the Gods — tired of the endless squabbling in _Dunmanifestin_ — deciding to put in a personal appearance, anything was possible.

The show was over shortly after. Havelock slipped away, pondering what he’d seen, still marvelling at the way Keel had handled the crowd. At the way he’d handled himself. As for the matter of Keel and that young watchman, he thought it best not to mention it to Aunt Bobbi. Not unless it became an issue before he’d completed his commission, or he had clearer proof of his suspicions. Plenty of time to deal with it later.

oOo

And now it was later, and Keel was dead. Or someone was dead. The body Havelock saw was dressed like Keel, but the nose was wrong and the ears were wrong. Much to his relief, he saw the watchman covering the body with a horse-blanket was the young lance-constable. Vimes, one of the others called him.

oOo

In the years after that, following Vimes’ rise while the Watch declined, Havelock had found the hardest part to be deciding when to interfere and when to leave well alone. He’d quickly understood that to create the man Sergeant Keel had been — a thug who overrode his instincts moment by moment, able to read the street in both senses, and give peace to ordinary citizens as well as keep it — would take time and more than a little hardship.

But time moved on, as time is inclined to do. And Havelock may have used Aunt Bobbi’s lessons to become Patrician, but he knew it was Keel’s lessons kept him there. Not because he wanted the power for its own sake but because Keel had shown him the possibility of a different kind of city. A better kind of city than one in which protests over the price of bread turned into riots and massacres.

And Havelock waited. Until the dragon came. Finally, as Havelock had known he would, Vimes dragged himself out of the gutter and into sobriety. Met his Sibyl. Could be promoted and ennobled and forced into fancy armour — as often as possible after Carcer showed up. 

And finally, one day — not just any day, of course. It was the twenty-fifth of May. That was the nature of these things — a message came that Havelock had been expecting, though he’d never known exactly what it would say or when it would arrive.

 _“We’ve got Carcer cornered in New Hall! I’ve got to get down there_ now _!”_

[1] Competitive examinations did, after all, ensure no incompetent assassin ever entered the profession.


End file.
